


Status: Undelivered

by athousandwinds



Category: 20th Century CE RPF, Literary RPF
Genre: M/M, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-21
Updated: 2011-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:40:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Letter written Saturday 2nd November 1918. Author unidentified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Status: Undelivered

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inrevolt](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=inrevolt).



2nd November 1918

Dear Siegfried,

 ~~The front is~~ The front is very much like it always is. It is easier to write to someone who already knows that; one who doesn't ask if the weather is dry, or if there's anything that can be done when there isn't. I think my mother refuses to believe that things don't get better; instead, she hopes because I can't.

It has been raining. It barely makes things worse; the Germans hate firing in the rain as much as we do. I don't remember this much rain when I lived here before the war, but I should think that that is nostalgia. It bathes even the soggiest memories in sunlight.

One good thing has come out of it all, says Jones, my batman. Jones-the-bat, he calls himself sometimes. When we leave here - if we leave here - there'll be an awful lot of fertiliser. When he says this, he chuckles at his own black humour and I smile, but it's not funny at all. I can't think of anything growing here after the war, though I suppose it must. The earth doesn't care in the slightest, after all, and flowers bloom the most beautifully in graveyards.

 ~~You would like Jones. He has your sense of humour, and more than your looks~~ I miss you. Everyone in London seems long ago and far away, as in tales of yore - something that happened to somebody else in another time and place. Occasionally my head dries up and I can't write, which is infinitely more frustrating than my pen doing the same. It used to be the case that leaning back and staring at the sky was enough for me to produce some doggerel, but when I look at the stars I only realise how insignificant this hell is, and when I look at the ground I know how consuming it is, and between the two I become angry and can't work. Silly, isn't it.

Some days I can hardly write letters. It's a strange sensation for one accustomed to verbal diarrhoea and sometimes I think I should simply snap my pen in half and have done with it all. This one is coming rather easily, perhaps because you are such a good friend or perhaps because

I don't believe I'll send this letter after all, Siegfried.


End file.
